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Hi.
I just have a question about air filters, I have a 2011. 1.6lt, Elantra. It’s not a rocketship but runs off a oily rag and it’s an absolutely fantastic car for what it does. Korean cars have come along way.
My concern is that it’s got a stock filter on it now, I live in China where at the best of times the air is quite bad.
If I change it over to say a K&N would I get more fuel efficiency and a tad more power/smoothness out of it ?Thanks.
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I personally have installed a K&N stock replacement filter ( one that drops directly into your stock air box where your old paper filter is ) into a 2010 accord recently and they have said there was small difference in MPG, power and smoothness. Not an amount that would make you say “WOW” ..small percentage though.
Computer was reading originally 7.5 MPG and after the replacement it was 6.5 You have to factor in driving conditions as well. Remember thought that is just with a filter upgrade. All depends on which style or type you get.
The plus side of it is they claim it last the life of your car compared to stock filters. Washable! S:)
Yeah i like the K&N OEM style filters.
I’d go with that.
Don’t waste your time on any of those cheap cold air intake kits.. the stock air box work kinda like a cold air intake from the factory.Trcustoms is right.
My cars air intake is infront of the front wheel inside the well, which is what and aftermarket cold air intake setup is like is it not?
Air does seem to have less drag going through a smooth pipe rather a plastic collapsing pipe though. I find that most cheap CAI and SRI’s which increase flow also lets dirt particals through more and causes your oil to dirty faster from what I’ve experienced. Keep the airbox, it’s great insulation, I’ve lined mine with insulation and sealed it off so none of it breaks loose into the filter. I would fabricate smooth pipes running into the box and out the box to your throttle body as well for a smoother flow, but thats a project on it’s own.
But yea. I love the drop in K&Ns, they are a lifetime filter are they not?
I have been using K&N for number of cars and here is my take on it.
K&N will increase engine noise and you really don’t get much HP gain unless you go with Cold Air Intake. Usually comes with a down pipe to relocate your filter under the front bumper. The bad news is when you this, you increase chance of your car sucking up the water during heavy rain (which happened to one of my car). A bigger problem is that yearly, I have to lower the bumper clean the filter element. When you take out the bumper (something that is not designed to be taken out so often) you would end up with several broken bolts, clips, plastic parts. You would end up replacing those every 2 – 3 years (which can get expensive)
HP gain is minimal. The vendors claims that you would get 10 – 20 HP, but on my car, it was more like 5 HP (I guess depends on cars). For some cars (Volvo, Maxima, BMW,…) the air mass meter is right next to the air box. So no matter how well you oil the filter, you just cannot prevent the oil from destroying the sensor (and this is an expensive sensor to destroy) For some cars (specifically BMW) engine temperature is pretty high so normal CAI won’t work too well – it will just be sucking down hot air and hurts the performance. So you would have to build a heat shield around the filter (and after market heat shield is pretty expensive for these cars)
Then there is a quality issue. The mounting hardware isn’t as good as stock and they rattle over time (or makes whistling noise). Car car will also suck down more dirt and dust and it will shorten the life of the engine. So if you care about the engine, then keep the stock filter. Otherwise go with K&N.
Im not a fan of K&N filters as i have run into many issues of diagnosing peoples vehicles with MAF codes. The issue i see is that people over oil these filters causing the oil to transfer from the filter to the MAF heated elements.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ub … p?ubb=cfrm has some good discussion on aftermarket air filters.
there are oiless filters as well but i find them to collect dirt. As far as CAIs sucking up water, there are bypass valves (hydropurge valves) built to go between the two pipes. it doesnt get out all of the water but it helps.
Quoted From dreamer2355:
Im not a fan of K&N filters as i have run into many issues of diagnosing peoples vehicles with MAF codes. The issue i see is that people over oil these filters causing the oil to transfer from the filter to the MAF heated elements.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ub … p?ubb=cfrm has some good discussion on aftermarket air filters.
My co-worker has a subaru liberty and when he used an oil type air filter he got a check engine light, the cruise would not work.
After he cleaned the sensor and put an paper type back in everything was fine.
Yes, Aftermarket CAI (Cold Air intakes) and RAI’s (Ram Air Intakes) Do work, There has been Dyno proven results behind this, However, Is it worth it? Well that all depends on what you drive and what you want from your car. By the way, If you change out to a aftermarket Intake. You should really have a custom tune to take full benefit of it. To smooth out the A/F And make sure you do not run lean and cause detonation.
Personally speaking, using a reusable air filter on my cars winds up being cheaper than replacing the paper filters over and over again. Then again, I’m the kind of person who will buy a car and then drive it until it no longer suits my needs. The car I’m driving now is 7 years old and I’m not planning on replacing it any time soon, if I ever replace it. I’ve already decided that I’m going to drive it until it dies then I’m going to rebuild it and drive it until it dies again. I don’t buy the reusable filters for their upgraded performance value, which is marginal at best. I buy them for their longevity.
Yeah.., If you over oil the filters you’ll have MAF problems like dreamer said.
Be very careful with that.My take is if you buy a car that has 120 hp, and the K n N filter says you are going to gain 10 horsepower, are you really going to notice the difference? No. I don’t bother with my cars, as I don’t have a hot-rod project at the moment. And honestly, even if I did, I probably would have better options for gaining horseys than replacing the air filter.
Iv noticed better fuel milage and a little more power out of my truck since iv add mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOFyMaeo … ature=plcp
Disclaimer – I am still learning.
Think of your engine as a type of big air mover. It sucks air in, and blows air out. When you do things to your engine the help that process, you get more horse power. So the ideas with an aftermarket air filter, is to allow more air to flow in. Think you should really work the exhaust first, but that tends to cost more, so people go for the in side.
The down side is your EPA stuff. Your Catalytic converter wastes gasoline. It wants some unused fuel to enter the exhaust stream, to help with converting different types of exhaust gases. It tries to figure out what is going on with your O2 sensors. So when you change your O2 in, your EPA system might end up making you waste more gasoline because it is guessing about what the exhaust gases are.
Your fuel injectors cycle through to much gasoline, and a little less gasoline all the time. That is how you get the gasoline in your exhaust, and catalytic converter.
So what really needs to be done, is to understand how your engine computer is handling the sensors. Write custom tables to work with the correct O2 levels.
Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I learn through failure.
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